And mine came with the kickstand as part of the frame, so you don't
get clamp distortion.

But there's a downside to the all-in-one-piece philosophy. I wanted a
smaller chainwheel, and learned that it's welded to the crankset --
changing it would cost a substantial fraction of what I paid for the
bike.

So I'm stuck with a two-speed bike, the steering being too antsy for
me to ever want to pedal while going downhill.

--
joy beeson at comcast dot nethttp://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.

40 years ago, a British friend showed me his trick: Put the curb side
pedal just behind the direct downward (6 O'clock) position; prop that
pedal on the curb, and lean the front wheel into the curb. The force of
the curb upward on the pedal tries (weakly) to drive the bike forward;
but the wheel turned into the curb prevents it from moving.

40 years ago, a British friend showed me his trick: Put the curb side
pedal just behind the direct downward (6 O'clock) position; prop that
pedal on the curb, and lean the front wheel into the curb. The force of
the curb upward on the pedal tries (weakly) to drive the bike forward;
but the wheel turned into the curb prevents it from moving.

I do that daily as I leave the House and turn to lock the front door.
--
Andrew Chaplin
SIT MIHI GLADIUS SICUT SANCTO MARTINO
(If you're going to e-mail me, you'll have to get "yourfinger." out.)

When you pin your pants at the ankles, resist the temptation to use
the resulting wings as handles to help you get your foot over the
saddle. This puts excessive strain on the pins, which may cause them
to bend and open.

No there's no story to go with that -- the buffer is BARE.

Somebody ask a question.

--
Joy Beeson, U.S.A., mostly central Hoosier,
some Northern Indiana, Upstate New York, Florida, and Hawaii
joy beeson at comcast dot net http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.

On Mon, 18 Apr 2016 11:16:14 -0000 (UTC), Andrew Chaplin
wrote:
I lean the saddle or crank the against the pole.

Tried the saddle-and-crank park on the street-number post on my way
out the driveway the last time I rode the flatfoot, and it worked. The
crank isn't nearly as far forward as I thought it was. (The curves of
the tubes create an optical illusion that makes the distance between
the bottom bracket and the seat post look much longer until one
mentally extrapolates the straight portions of the tubes.)

The short reach explains why it's so hard to pedal. Not as hard to
pedal as the child-size paddle boat that drifted up on our beach a few
years ago, but hard enough that I don't really mind that I can't go
through a traffic light on it.

(Eventually a motorboat came by with two children, and the father
escorted them as they pedalled home. It's a small lake -- and I
presume that shorter legs were less inconvenienced.)

You can keep going forever if you spend five minutes of each hour flat
on your back with your arms stretched out to the sides. In warm
weather, there should be a bottle of water by one hand and a bottle of
juice beside the other.

The trick lies in finding a place where you can do this without
attracting ambulances.

In Thatcher Park above Albany, New York, there is or was a flat-topped
wall just high enough that it's obvious that a person who got up there
is in good condition. So one can rest up before the four-mile coast
to New Salem, whoopty-doo.

No-one has ever bothered me while I was resting in a graveyard, but
graveyards are not strategically placed. And in some, all the shady
spots are full of poison ivy.

Once I tried flaking out on a lawn that was frequently covered by the
racing team from R.P.I. That doesn't work unless you bring the team
with you.

--
joy beeson at comcast dot nethttp://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.

This is mostly from memory -- now that my range is so short, I nearly
always plan on eating at a fast-food joint, and the food I carry has
to stay good through several expeditions that don't meet with an
emergency.

Aside: you should always carry some bike fuel that you don't plan to
eat. You won't need it often, but when you do, you will be *very*
glad that you brought it.

Once, on a supported tour, I was too tired to fight the crowd at
suppertime . . . and by the time I noticed that the crowd was people
going back for seconds, they had run out of food. But I had two
high-calorie muffins in my luggage, and did just fine.

That incident is probably why, whenever I fantasize about feeding a
randonneur tour -- those guys are a cook's daydream -- whatever the
menu, my plans include giving unopened boxes of spaghetti and cans of
spaghetti sauce to Our Father's House.

The main menu would never be pasta -- I once read an interview with a
Boston-Montreal-Boston rider who said that he got so fed up with pasta
that he would have killed for a baked potato. So my menu features an
oven filled with one huge potato per person (plus ten percent for
error), a sack or two of raw small potatoes and two microwaves (three
if I can borrow Kiddie Kollege's microwave) for seconds, and several
crock pots of toppings.

Jambalaya would be good, but doesn't allow for individual taste --
suppose you put garlic in it and someone is allergic to garlic? Two
kinds of rice and the aforementioned crockpots of toppings.

Of course, any peasant food would be good bike fuel. But I don't
think I'd be good at serving tortillas even though one can buy them
ready made. Fish and poi? No way to get the ingredients even if I
knew what to do with them.

Could go back to my own peasant roots and serve good ol' Hoosier
tamale pie, but that's the same problem as jambalaya, and I don't
think anyone under seventy would recognize plain polenta as food.
Shucks, there are people older than I am who won't touch it.

Perhaps spanish hamburger and an assortment of starches?

And that's enough to make a post; this being the only post in the
buffer, I'll save my original topic for another post.

If I can remember what I meant to say.

--
joy beeson at comcast dot nethttp://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.

This is mostly from memory -- now that my range is so short, I nearly
always plan on eating at a fast-food joint, and the food I carry has
to stay good through several expeditions that don't meet with an
emergency.

Aside: you should always carry some bike fuel that you don't plan to
eat. You won't need it often, but when you do, you will be *very*
glad that you brought it.

Once, on a supported tour, I was too tired to fight the crowd at
suppertime . . . and by the time I noticed that the crowd was people
going back for seconds, they had run out of food. But I had two
high-calorie muffins in my luggage, and did just fine.

That incident is probably why, whenever I fantasize about feeding a
randonneur tour -- those guys are a cook's daydream -- whatever the
menu, my plans include giving unopened boxes of spaghetti and cans of
spaghetti sauce to Our Father's House.

The main menu would never be pasta -- I once read an interview with a
Boston-Montreal-Boston rider who said that he got so fed up with pasta
that he would have killed for a baked potato. So my menu features an
oven filled with one huge potato per person (plus ten percent for
error), a sack or two of raw small potatoes and two microwaves (three
if I can borrow Kiddie Kollege's microwave) for seconds, and several
crock pots of toppings.

Jambalaya would be good, but doesn't allow for individual taste --
suppose you put garlic in it and someone is allergic to garlic? Two
kinds of rice and the aforementioned crockpots of toppings.

Of course, any peasant food would be good bike fuel. But I don't
think I'd be good at serving tortillas even though one can buy them
ready made. Fish and poi? No way to get the ingredients even if I
knew what to do with them.

Could go back to my own peasant roots and serve good ol' Hoosier
tamale pie, but that's the same problem as jambalaya, and I don't
think anyone under seventy would recognize plain polenta as food.
Shucks, there are people older than I am who won't touch it.

Perhaps spanish hamburger and an assortment of starches?

And that's enough to make a post; this being the only post in the
buffer, I'll save my original topic for another post.

If I can remember what I meant to say.

Peasant food? I nominate pierogi! Preferably with a variety of
fillings, not just the classic potato.

If you can come up with a way to make them hot and ready to eat while
cycling, I'll nominate you for canonization. (And two popes ago, you'd
have been a shoo-in!)